Mysterio's Comic Origins, Movie Motives and Whether He Really Died in Far From Home

Far From Home leans heavily on Mysterio, the enigmatic figure who spends much of the film lining up to replace Iron Man as Earth's greatest protector. I want to break down everything worth knowing about Quentin Beck, how his backstory ties into the comics, what he actually wants in the movie, and why I don't think his apparent death in London is the end of the story.

Mysterio's Earth 833 backstory borrows directly from Spider-UK's origin in the comics

Mysterio, aka Quentin Beck, is apparently from Earth 833, a planet that was supposedly ravaged by creatures called the Elementals. Tying that back to the source material, Earth 833 in the comics doesn't actually have the Spider-Man we know. Peter Parker was never bitten by a radioactive spider on that world, so that version of the character never came to exist.

Instead, on Earth 833 it was William Braddock who was bitten, and he took on the pseudonym Spider-UK. Spider-UK is able to jump from dimension to dimension, but when he tried to return to his own Earth, he found it destroyed in a cosmic event known as the incursion. On the surface, everything lines up neatly: it explains why Mysterio doesn't recognize Spider-Man and why his world was supposedly destroyed.

Beck's real motive is a personal vendetta against Tony Stark, not an alien invasion

Even though that backstory is pretty accurate to the comics, Far From Home reveals that Mysterio is actually the personification of a group of people who all hold serious grudges against Tony Stark, with Quentin Beck heading them up. Beck was the original creator of BARF, the technology that appeared in Captain America: Civil War. Stark only used it for a therapeutic experiment and then mothballed it, much to Beck's dismay.

On top of that, several people now working with Beck were scorned by Stark's achievements in the past, including a scientist from the original Iron Man film who was berated by Obadiah Stane for not being able to recreate the arc reactor. Since Tony Stark sacrificed himself to save the universe, Beck views his death as an opportunity to rise to the forefront, using incredible holographic technology attached to drones to convince the world, J. Jonah Jameson, and Spider-Man himself that he is the planet's greatest hope.

The whole scheme is built around stealing E.D.I.T.H. and staging an attack on London

All of this is set up to obtain E.D.I.T.H., the AI tool created by Tony Stark that commands a fleet of drones capable of protecting the planet from another Thanos level threat. Upon his death, Stark entrusted this power to Peter Parker, but because of the doubt Beck casts in Peter's head throughout the film, Peter decides to pass ownership over to Mysterio instead.

That handover is what enables Mysterio to launch a full scale attack on London, an act designed to cement his status as Earth's mightiest protector. Spider-Man is there to put an end to that plan, and after Mysterio recklessly uses his own drones to fire at him, Beck is caught in the resulting blast zone.

Did Mysterio really die? I don't believe he did

One of the biggest questions floating around the ending is whether Mysterio actually died. Personally, I don't believe that he did. Throughout the movie he's able to use duplicates to make it appear as though he is present in places he isn't, and he clearly has more than enough technology to fake his own death. He also still has access to E.D.I.T.H. at that point, which is the only thing that verifies his death, and at no point does he seem to have had the proper opportunity to film the segment that later reveals Peter Parker is Spider-Man.

After my second watch of the film, I'm convinced that he's still out there somewhere. It's something I've gone back and forth on, and we won't know for certain for a while. The entire plot of Far From Home is built around deception, and that theme doesn't just apply to Mysterio. It also runs through what Nick Fury and Maria Hill are doing across the film.

Mysterio's comic history stretches from a 1964 debut to Old Man Logan

Before getting too deep into fan theories, it's worth looking at where Mysterio comes from on the page. He originally debuted in Amazing Spider-Man #13 from 1964, created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. Though that's known as his first appearance, he was later credited as being responsible for an alleged alien invasion turned hoax two issues into that same run. He's been a member of the Sinister Six at several points throughout his history, and if he returns in future films, I definitely think he would fit in well alongside the Scorpion and the Vulture, both of whom were also scorned by Stark.

Mysterio hasn't only gone after Spider-Man either. In the story Guardian Devil, Mysterio believed he could find a more worthy arch enemy in Daredevil and tormented him with visions of the Antichrist, a torment that hit home for Daredevil because of his Catholicism. Mysterio committed suicide at the end of that run, though he was later brought back to life. Further down the line, in Old Man Logan, Mysterio managed to trick Wolverine into murdering the X-Men, a plot point that pretty much drove him to put away his cause for good.

It's clear that while he may look pretty goofy, Mysterio is actually one of Spider-Man's greatest foes, and I definitely think that translates to the screen amazingly through Jake Gyllenhaal's performance. In the comics, Mysterio is a former special effects artist turned villain, and the film beautifully weaves that into the prior MCU films through the Civil War callback. All in all it makes for a great villain, and he's definitely one of the stronger foes in the MCU at this point, having brought down Spider-Man convincingly by the film's close.

Do you think Mysterio really died in that London blast, or is he still out there somewhere?